Tease the opening and generate excitement globally, highlighting the partnership between St. Regis Hotels & Resorts and Ginori 1735, and positioning Café Ginori as a must-visit destination for both Abu Dhabi locals and travelers to Saadiyat Island. By bringing Italian café culture to life through a distinctly artful and modern lens, the initiative aims to reinforce St. Regis’s reputation as a leader in luxury hospitality and design-driven experiences. Through stylish, whimsical, and curated content, the campaign seeks to create intrigue, elevate the partnership, and inspire engagement with this unique luxury offering.
As part of St. Regis Hotels & Resorts’ continuing partnership with Ginori 1735, which launched in November of 2024, the brand used social media in 2025 to highlight and amplify the ongoing global rollout of on-property activations across its portfolio.
Ahead of the debut of Café Ginori at The St. Regis Saadiyat Island Resort, Abu Dhabi—an experience blending Italian style and cuisine, St. Regis rituals, and the Art of Gathering—St. Regis sought to tease the opening and generate global excitement. The objective was to do so through an unexpected, social-first activation that could stand alone as a singular cultural moment rather than a traditional opening announcement.
To achieve this, the brand released one visually arresting post: a short-form, social-native video featuring Ginori 1735 porcelain in an exquisite, striking moment designed to captivate audiences instantly and spark conversation.
Posted as a single Instagram Reel—the centerpiece of the activation—the video features three Ginori 1735 teapots held aloft by three hands.
Tea, an important element of Emirati culture and a signature St. Regis ritual, is poured in a seemingly magical sequence: from the top teapot to the middle, to the bottom, and finally into a teacup.
Unexpected and unquestionably glamorous, the video played into the growing 'surrealism' trend on social media, with audiences so captivated they were asking whether it had been AI-generated (it had not). As an early adopter and pioneer of this aesthetic, the brand set a new benchmark for digital creativity.
The Ginori teapot post became St. Regis’ second top-performing paid asset from 2025, generating 173K paid engagements. Combined with impressive organic-only performance—12.6K organic engagements and 3K organic shares—the video was one of the brand’s most engaging posts on Instagram.
In Q2, the post accounted for 12.1% of total engagements (paid and organic) and 11.9% of total organic engagements, despite representing less than 3% of the quarter’s paid budget—demonstrating the outsized impact of a single, well-executed moment.
The paid amplification delivered an exceptional 40% engagement rate—more than 4.5x the Marriott Luxury Group average—and a 75% view-through rate, far exceeding benchmarks for luxury hospitality content. Additionally, tracked attributable revenue exceeded the promoted budget by 140%, underscoring the post’s tangible business impact.
The Ginori 1735 teapots activation demonstrates how a single, unexpected post can cut through the social landscape and become a defining brand moment. By rejecting traditional hospitality tropes—such as a standard tea service setup or straightforward opening announcement—and instead leaning into bold visual storytelling, St. Regis transformed Café Ginori at The St. Regis Saadiyat Island Resort into one of its most talked-about moments of the year.
The activation’s whimsical mystique, high-gloss art direction, and cultural relevance sparked curiosity, conversation, and measurable performance, proving the power of one thoughtfully crafted post to drive awareness, engagement, and revenue.